Mixtape: Mandatory Brunch Meetings x Meyhem Lauren

Meyhem Lauren is back for this year’s second offering, Mandatory Brunch Meetings, a solid follow-up to this summer’s Respect The Fly Shit. There’s a hint of 90’s rap nostalgia here, but I don’t want people to dismiss the project of something that simply harkens back to the days of “boom-bap rap”. In taking it back to the grit, Lauren manages to still keep it fly at the same time, discussing designer labels and fine food in the same breath as smacking the spit out of wack rappers. Though most people might know him as simply “Action Bronson’s man”, Lauren has always had his own separate identity, which I think he makes abundantly clear on this mixtape. The current production triumvirate for Lauren’s crew (Alchemist, Harry Fraud, and Tommy Mas) all deliver individual tracks, but it’s the relative unknowns (see track listing) that really carve out the overall feel of the album, giving Laurenovich yet another mixtape that’s better than most of the albums that have dropped in 2012.